Engaging an Audience with your Message

As a leader, how do you engage an audience when communicating?

As a leader, you need to communicate with individuals, small groups, and large groups on a regular basis. To capture any audience's attention, you must frame your message properly. Whether you're making a presentation, composing an email, or talking with your boss, here's how to convey your idea: Start with what you want. Busy colleagues don't want to wait for the punch line. Provide the most important information up front.  Don't leave them guessing what your message is leading up to. Explain the complication. Give the specific reason for your message. What prompted you to deliver it?  Why is it important? Connect to the big picture. Explain why your audience should care. Point out what is relevant to them and how it links to their goals.  Where does this fit in to the bigger picture? End with a call to action. Once you've set the context, reiterate what you need or possible actions that you're recommending.  Adapted from Guide to Managing Up and Across (HBR OnPoint Collection).

Leading Effective Meetings

As a leader, how do you ensure purpose in your meetings?

As leaders, we generally have the positional authority to call meetings when we wish.  This has obvious advantages but it also has significant potential risks for you as a leader.  If your meetings are purposeful and engaging, you run the risk of dooming all meetings to events your staff members learn to dread.

Here are four simple ideas to ensure effective meetings:

• Have a clear purpose.  Be sure that each meeting has a clear purpose and that everyone attending knows the purpose in advance.  People who attend can come prepared.  If your purpose is clear, your outcomes will be more readily accomplished.
• Ensure everyone who needs to be there is present.  Be sure that everyone who needs to know - or wants to know - is included.  If the meeting is worth calling, it's worth having all valuable perspectives present in the room.  It's annoying and ineffective when you find you need someone there and they weren't even invited.
• Operate by pre-determined norms.  Establish clear, easy-to-follow norms and stick by them.  People appreciate how norms focus meetings and get the work done in a timely manner.
• Use facilitation strategies. A well-facilitated meeting engages the participants and it accomplishes the outcomes desired.  Without facilitation, the meeting can go on and on while its trying to find a focus.  What usually ends up happening is that one person takes over and it becomes their meeting and you lose the value of those who are present. 

Need to Teach? Try Show & Tell

As a leader, how do you build capacity among your staff members?

How many times have you trained a colleague in a task, only to have that person come knocking on your door every five minutes with a question?   Building the capacity of your staff members is a key leadership role.  People learn and build their capacity by watching and engaging with others, so instead of telling people how to solve a problem, show them and tell them. Take them through each step, explaining your thinking and the reasons behind each. Then allow them to ask as many questions as needed. This will not only give them the foundation they need to do the task, but will prompt you to master the task more deeply as you provide a justification for each step.  And keep the office door open.  If there are further questions, you want to be there to lend a hand. 


Adapted from "The Best Approach to Training" by Richard Catrambone.

Engaging Staff Members on a Daily Basis

As a leader, how do build staff engagement?

As a leader, dealing with staff members who lack enthusiasm for their jobs or don't feel connected to the school/organization is a big hurdle. Here are three things you can do daily to engage your people:

• Facilitate progress. Staff members feel engaged when they make headway toward objectives. Provide clear goals and resources to support their progress.
• Make work meaningful. Your school/organization doesn't need a lofty mission to make employees care. They simply need to see how their actions contribute to the value provided by the work of the school/organization.
• Reward and recognize. Don't wait for milestones. Show appreciation every day for the work your staff members do.

Adapted from "What Your Boss Needs to Know About Engagement" by Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer.

Admit what you don't know

As a leader, are you able to reveal your weaknesses in order to build a stronger workplace?

Leaders who insist on making all the decisions often find themselves with disengaged employees. If people aren't taking charge in your organization, your leadership style might be the problem. If you have an overly directive approach, take a step back. Acknowledge your failings (whether they be your knowledge base or a particular skill set) with your team. Share your personal and organizational goals. Then, admit that you don't have all the answers and you need your team's help in reaching those goals. This will give your people room to actively participate in the organization's success. This act of humility is often seen as courageous and inspires others to follow suit.

You can extend this idea to actually inviting some individuals to take on certain roles.  For example, if you're bad at remembering the social aspects of the workplace, ask for a couple of volunteers to take on this responsibility.  Another example might be asking for a volunteer or two to help identify what's missing from conversations at meetings.  Certain individuals could be asked to help the group identify perspectives that may be missed when your team gets together to work.  By engaging more staff with important workplace roles, you're sharing the responsibility of leading the school/organization.  You're building capacity, and you're ensuring the workplace is a healthy environment in which to work because responsibility is shared.


Adapted from "Fire, Snowball, Mask, Movie: How Leaders Spark and Sustain Change" by Peter Fuda and Richard Badham.

Engage your Staff as if they were Customers

As a leader, how do you engage your staff?

The same techniques for earning stakeholder loyalty also work when engaging members of your staff. After all, both efforts depend on treating people with respect. Here are two ways to use 'customer service' approaches to improve relationships with all of your staff.

• Get real-time feedback. Don't wait for the annual staff member survey - or whatever other tool you use to gather feedback - to ask people what they think. Conduct regular and anonymous surveys that respect the time of your staff members and only ask the few questions that yield the most important insights. This will generate a steady stream of ideas for improvement.
• Make staff engagement a priority. If 'customer service' is a top priority in your school/organization, employee loyalty should be as well. Don't delegate the effort to HR - or worse yet, ignore it. Instead, ask those who closely interact with staff members to make sure they're engaged.  Ultimately, it's the school/organization and those it serves that win.

Adapted from "Engage Employees Using Customer Service Tactics" by Rob Markey.

As a leader, how do you engage your staff?

Engaged employees are essential to a leader's - and organization's - success. Without staff who care about, participate in, and take ownership over the work, even the best leader will flounder. Here are three ways to win your staff's engagement:

• Be modest. Share both your mistakes and your successes. Staff will see that you're both human and don't have anything to prove.
• Show that you're listening. People tune in to body language. Manage where you look and what you do with your hands so that staff know you're paying attention.
• Don't have all the answers. Leaders should catalyze problem solving. Be willing to admit that you don't know what the answer is and invite your team to toss around ideas.

Adapted from: How to Cultivate Engaged Employees by Charalambos A. Vlachoutsicos